Too Many Lightsabers

Interesting observation, Beowulf. I think it's kinda like the Boba Fett situation. what I mean is that when fans saw Boba Fett, they saw a really awesome looking character who barely spoke. He also wore really cool armor which was never removed and that only added to his allure by making him mysterious. Because of all of the attention that Boba Fett got, he became a consistent character in the entire series. Well naturally, when a large group of people like something, others will try to exploit that and so the Mandolorians were born, a culture of people which explained Boba Fett's armor and attitude.

I am saying all of this to bring up a point. That point is that when people something which is pretty cool and new and exciting, they become obsessed with it and just won't let it go. I think that that is what happened to the double-bladed lightsabers and characters with two lightsabers. People saw something new, cool and exciting and become obsessed with the idea.
At least that is my opinion on the subject, and I would like to add as a disclaimer that I am sleepy and it is late where I am and I tend to rant in these situations, so I'm sorry about the long post.

Actually, according to the EU, double bladed lightsabers were fairly common back in the Old Republic day's. The reason for their discontinued use was because the Jedi believed that they were more of a darksided weapon, because they were mainly used for offense. However, it is believed that the students in the temple had been trained to wield them, as well as be able to defend against them. Thus the reason why it didn't surprise Qui Gon, or Obi Wan when he pulled it out. They knew what it was, and knew how to defend against it.

Honestly, I say anything that makes a story interesting is always a good thing to have. Star Wars fans have been making up all kinds of lightsabers over the years. I agree that there has to be some training to use one, and you must be Force Sensitive to use one effectively, but as far as the fans go, it has never hurt anyone to write up stories using a lot of sabers.

Personally, I've had characters that wielded two double bladed lightsabers. Just for the cool factor, **though my character only did this on a few occasions.**

But if you look at "Star Wars The Old Republic" MMO that is coming out in December, there are some really cool lightsabers in their mini movies, especially the most recent one. If you haven't watched their movies, you should, they are quite amazing :)

About General Grievous, if you read about his back story and where he came from then you find out that he was an extremely skilled warrior in his own right before he became a cyborg, sos much so even that he was considered to be a demigod by his own species. I think that is why he was able to be so adept at using four lightsabers. Oh, and thanks.

I didn't know that, Xan. That's pretty cool though and would make a lot of sense. I have to say that one of my favorite light-weapons would be Lumiya's lightwhip.

Thanks, Beowulf. I have so much hate for this kind of thing. SO MUCH HATE.

I've already ranted around here about how I hate Mandalorians. Now I can rant about how I hate Force-users. HATE haha

In the OT, using the Force was an awesome, remote, mystical process that transformed the main character into someone worthwhile. It was all very mythological and made a lot of story/mythos sense. It all fit very well with established themes present in folktales and mythology and felt real and awesome. Fighting with a lightsaber was the final detail that drew it all together. In the old films, watching a lightsaber fight was like watching a Kurosawa samurai film, or a Zatoichi flick. It was very reverent for a real, somber, almost ritualized style that focused on the participants and their relation to each other, rather than idiotic space violence. Nowadays, lightsabers are just playthings stupid characters use to chop each other up.

And Xan, I think you're missing the point. I think Beowulf's complaint is from the outside looking in, an observation about the series itself and the way we've constructed it. A universe-internal explanation seems irrelevant. Not to belittle your point, I understand there is an in-universe explanation. It's just that the fans and authors will write in-universe explanations for ANYTHING, and they don't add up to much for fans like me.

Star Wars should be about feel, about a style of visual storytelling and a particular brand of adventure that links our space-age fantasies with our old mythologies. Anything not serving this end gets the boot from me!

/end rant

Boshuda

Hey Asok... I have to say, I think you hit the point I was trying to make, and then over looked it :)

My point is, that too each person who writes a story, their Jedi may be the only PC.

The problems come up when you have 1,000 different people who each have their own Star Wars universe coming to the same place to make reqeusts for their unique character. This causes all the lightsabers we see.

It's not that there's a "canon" explanation, it's that we don't have canon anymore when it comes to RPG's.

the canon we have is decided by Lucas Arts, and company... But the fan fiction is so far strung out that you can literally explain away anything. To me, I just enjoy writing stories that no one else has to read. I'm sure that those who actually Role Play feel the same way. It's for the fun of the story.

That's my only point. We won't see a lack of Lightsabers any time soon, because if we do, that means that the love for the Jedi/Sith is gone, and Star Wars is no longer fun.

Asok nailed it for me. Xan, I see your point, but for me the lightsaber fatigue set in long before I was looking at SWAG requests. It goes back as far as the first birthings of the EU. for me it started with having light saber colours other than the established blue, red...and to a lesser extent green.

When the EU started raiding the rainbow for new and 'cool' lightsaber colours...the whole lightsaber mystique lost it's lustre in my mind.

The first double bladed lightsaber I knew of was depicted in an old comic that pre-dated the release of the Phantom Menace. It even pre-dated the re-release of the original trilogy. It was the story of Exar Kun (sp?) and how he fashioned a double-edged sword so that he could beat his fellow jedi trainees in duels...thus starting his path to the darkside.

I know the EU has gone through countless revistions, retcons and reboots since then, so I don't know how well that old story is doing these days...but for me that was the first and only double-bladed saber until the appearance of Darth Maul.

When I saw that second blade ignite for the first time in the theater, I thought to myself 'That's Exar-Kun's home-made design!'.

Ahahahahaaa, why am I completely unsurprised by Asok's sentiments!!

While I actually agree with a lot of the thoughts here, I don't see it with quite the same level of seething rage, and I guess I owe that to the fact that I've never been too deeply immersed in the EU (only a handful of novels/comics that have been expressly given/recommended to me, and of course the experience of my home game, is about as far as it goes for me).

And the EU/roleplaying elements are two different sides of the same stone. There's no denying that 'Star Wars' is much, much bigger than the Original Trilogy. Those three films are something special, no doubt. What Asok has said, about the style and the feel of them, and what it means to 'use the Force' or 'be a Jedi' is right on-- it's hell awesome, I really dig it, and sadly haven't felt it replicated in any of the EU I've experienced. (When I watch the prequels I seriously wonder if our dear friend George has actually decided what exactly the term 'Jedi' means.)

I'm not big on coolness for coolness' sake. But there are plenty of people who are- I know I've had the same argument with my husband dozens of times. "Why would you do that?" "Because it's cool! I mean look at it!" "But... why." "Can't you just do something just because it's cool?" "But there's no point! It's just... overkill!" Unfortunately, laser swords and 'magic' powers are something that lend themselves tragically well to being abused 'for coolness' sake', and even more unfortunately there are obviously a whole lot of folk out there, somewhere in the world, who thrive on it. The Star Wars universe is rife with stuff like that (I mean seriously oh my god what is this why why whyyyyyyyyyy... and don't even get me started on what on earth the purpose of THIS was!!), but all that business really only cheapens the mystique and wonder of the originals if you let it.

The roleplaying perspective, meanwhile... yeah, that's something else again. And I think Xan made a good point, and one I whole-heartedly agree with.

I most certainly had to deal with the 'coolness lovers' in my own group, not to mention those who would just metagame the hell out things and pile on the powers and weapons as heavily as the rules allowed, story be damned. For a long while this frustrated the heck outta me- because I love the idea of a Jedi as someone who has trained long and tough, gone through a hard slog, has had to make sacrifices to keep up with training and stay loyal to their teacher, and best of all develops and stays true to their personal philosophies and codes of ethics. It was bad enough, for me, to deal with the fact that a character could make it from 'Padawan' to 'Master' in a matter of in-game months as long as they managed to kill enough dudes (Game Rules, I can see why you make this possible but ugh, I don't have to like it)-- but it's all the worse when the character beside me, with no mentor to speak of, has dedicated no in-game time to 'training', and has absolute zilch by way of moral code, comes over and says "oh by the way I can bend space-time now". Blehhhhhhh.

But after dealing with the likes of that, existing in a party where characters dramatically flared up two extended lightsabers at every opportunity they could the moment they met the prereqs to do it... and still having an absolute BLAST with my group, I eventually came to be very 'live and let live' about it all. So, this is fun for them. Let them have it. It didn't stop Tusserk rolling his eyes every time he saw certain lightsabers waving ("...dude don't do that. Put it away. You don't need it right now, we have a torch. Aside from being dangerous it's just tacky. Please stop."). And it didn't stop Tusserk's personal journey from being incredibly meaningful to me. (Yeah, I'm this player. Big surprise.)

So yeah. In an extended universe full of thousands upon thousands of 'Jedi' and magical aliens with billions of glittering weapons of mystery, my character is one who eventually became a (oh dear!) young Jedi who carries (gasp!) two lightsabers, one of them is (the horror!)yellow, and sometimes he even fights with (my word!)both of them. But y'know what? I think I did a damn fine job with him. Everything he wears and wields and does has purpose, and has come from somewhere. He never uses the Force to attack; he's got discipline, but he's also got a host of flaws and most of his skills are actually pretty average. So much of his story is a reflection of everything I love about the original trilogy, about 'Star Wars'. Overprolific-pointless-coolness be damned; it's not going to make me feel jaded about what I love about the universe and my personal corner of it. And if it's going to make my character fall under the blanket of jaded RAAAAGE with every other of the 2189798372589 lightsaber-wielding Force-users out there, then haters be damned too! (Asok, please don't feel I'm sending any particular damning your way! ;) I feel like what I've just said could be construed that way, but I promise you I'm not... unless of course you do be hatin' on Tuss, in which case I damn quite thoroughly and will be forced to challenge you to a duel when I'm in the States next year.)

In closing; whoa, I spent way too long writing that.

Also this. GM vetoed me basing my new character off that, siiiiiiiigh :(

Though I agree with the argument as a whole ( to many light sabers, Mandos..what ever) I also agree with Xan. Though there are 2 in the party I play in, there are still only like 7-8 known light sabers in the galaxy. There is only one Mandalorian, And he is a bad-ass prone to goofieness.
As far as request go. I think in those terms. The character I am drawing is the only guy like this around. though there may be 100 mandos, and 500 lightsabers request on here...there is only one in each universe.
Now,the real culprets are the GMs. Cant have a lightsaber if they do not provide it. I myself was provided one complete lightsabre and some parts and a cyrstal for a second. While building it ( through a series of 3 consecutive 1's) I went all TommyBoy on it and smashed beyond repair. I was accually assigned force powers by the GM.
I guess my point is, each experience is unique to the game they are in. I have doubts my character will have a run in with anyone from outside my groups PC's, so they really dont matter...until the evil that is MMO's came around..so I dont play them.

Hey Tuss, I've had my share of goofy ill-fitting Star Wars adventures. Just look at Drig and Asok! Can any of us reasonably imagine them appearing in the Star Wars films without feeling like George Lucas has lost his sense of mythos? They're in many senses contrary to the heart of Star Wars, but I understand like we all do that the game is a thing divorced from the films. We all want to have fun in our own way!

My hatred isn't really directed at players - without the freedom to create (and potentially ruin) the collective universe on a whim, what fun would it be? I direct my ire at the EU creators... and the big man himself, lately.

Boshuda

Personally I'm enticed by the KOTOR era, where lightsabers were all over the place....

Because they do have that "COOL!" factor.

Lightsabers are the "swiss army" melee weapon. Sword, Flashlight, signaling device, blow torch, landing light, brush clearer, water heater, ultimate bug zapper, cool rave light, and "mood" lighting for those spececial times....

LMAO Casca. So true.

Beo, I am also partial to the idea of a long-hafted lightsaber, always have been.

Boshuda

I have a sort of a different take on this, if anyone is interested.

In some of McQuarrie's concept art for Star Wars, you'll see that many characters carried lightsabers. I heard something in a documentary as a kid, I forget what show it was, that lightsabers were supposed to be standard fare for boarding parties in ship-to-ship combat, as projectile or blaster weapons could damage shipboard systems or even breach hulls, especially in ships not designed for repelling boarders.

Thus, I encourage my players to carry backup melee weapons, as I have a habit of imposing various consequences for discharging weapons aboard ships. The lightsaber, in this role, would work perfectly. I encourage my players to obtain and use them when possible. Blame it on my time in the Navy :P

Edit: For example, I just had the characters' benefactor (a wealthy businessman Force Adept [modeled after Bruce Wayne] whose industrial might got pulled into a war) in my current game build and issue lightsabers for the characters, whether they are proficient or not, specifically for that reason.

Ultimately, though, after thinking about it for awhile, I think two lightsabers should be the limit for one character. I want to say Grievous is my biggest problem with Ep I-III, aside from the plot, of course.

Whoever was designing him had to say, at some point, "Ok, two extra arms is enough. Who would want four, or six, or ten extra arms? That would just be silly, especially for an unstoppable killing machine. Yep, just these two extra arms and nooooo more. Ok, maybe he can use his feet as hands too, but that's it."